We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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Commenting on David Blunkett’s proposal for a £40 compulsory ID card, Liberty spokesman Barry Hugill said:
The real beneficiary of such a policy will be the fraudsters who will make a fortune selling forged cards. There is no evidence that ID cards lead to a reduction in crime yet the Government is contemplating spending at least £1.5bn on the scheme.
This is a Government that cannot manage to pay tax credits, deliver passports or enforce child maintenance payments without catastrophic system failure. Does anyone seriously believe it could manage something as technologically complex as a national ID card?’
Liberty
A leaked memo revealed that David Blunkett is pushing the Cabinet to back national identity cards for everyone aged 16 and over, carrying biometric information, such as fingerprints, to allow police to confirm the holder’s identity. Under Mr Blunkett’s scheme, the card will cost £39 for most people between the ages of 17 and 75.
An opinion piece about the identity cards news in Telegraph is yet again explaining what is wrong with Blunkett’s argument. Basically, each of the claims made by the Home Secretary in support of his pet scheme is wrong.
- First, Mr Blunkett says that there is strong public support for the idea. In fact, the Home Office’s recent consultation exercise focused on the concept of an entitlement card, a very different prospect. (Also, according to this Out-law article, the goverment has admited that the public opposes the ID card scheme.)
- The Home Secretary goes on to argue ID cards will help fight crime. This is one of those assertions that is forever being made, but hardly ever substantiated… The public mood is said to have changed since September 11, 2001, but no one has explained – or even seriously tried to explain – how ID cards would have thwarted those bombers, many of whom died in possession of forged papers.
- Nor, by the way, are ID cards a solution to illegal immigration. The root of the asylum problem is not that we cannot find clandestine entrants, but that we never enforce their deportation.
- More faulty still is Mr Blunkett’s central proposition, as set out in a letter to his Cabinet colleagues: “The argument that identity cards will inhibit our freedom is wrong. We are strengthened in our liberty if our identity is protected from theft; if we are able to access the services we are entitled to; and if our community is better protected from terrorists.” In an appendix to Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell describes how a concept can be traduced if the words used to express it lose their meaning. The example he gives, uncannily, is the word “free”. Now here is Mr Blunkett using “freedom” to mean more state control.
- Any doubts as to the wisdom of the scheme must surely be removed by the Home Secretary’s final argument in its favour: that we are “out of kilter with Europe”. Indeed we are, thank heaven. Policemen in Britain are seen as citizens in uniform, not agents of the government.
The most worrying is Blunkett’s spin on the concept of freedom. In his view we are strengthened in our liberty if our identity is protected from theft; if we are able to access the services we are entitled to; and if our community is better protected from terrorists. This is vaguely based on the distinction between negative and positive liberty, which are not merely two distinct kinds of liberty; they can be seen as rival, incompatible interpretations of a single political ideal.
Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this negative sense. Positive liberty is the possibility of acting – or the fact of acting – in such a way as to take control of one’s life and realize one’s fundamental purposes. While negative liberty is usually attributed to individual agents, positive liberty is sometimes attributed to collectivities, or to individuals considered primarily as members of given collectivities.
Blunkett and his New Labour chums are classic and rather unexceptional anti-liberals. (I use the term liberal in its original meaning, based on negative definition of liberty and claiming that in order to protect individual liberty one should place strong limitations on the activities of the state.) In Blunkett’s mind, the pursuit of liberty (whether of the individual or of the collectivity) requires state intervention, which, by definition, is not contradictory with limitations on personal freedom. As a result, the protests of civil liberties groups do not make sense to him.
The concept of freedom as being unprevented from doing whatever one might desire to do is alien to him. According to Isaiah Berlin the defender of positive freedom will take an additional step that consists in conceiving of the self as wider than the individual and as represented by an organic social whole – “a tribe, a race, a church, a state, the great society of the living and the dead and the yet unborn”. The true interests of the individual are to be identified with the interests of this whole, and individuals can and should be coerced into fulfilling these interests, for they would not resist coercion if they were as rational and wise as their coercers.
I will not grant Blunkett’s social and political philosophy such level of ‘sophistication’. I will say that his are the simple and toxic insticts of a collectivist and a statist and that those protesting policies based on them will have their words muffled by the Big Blunkett.
Cross-posted from White Rose
An opinion piece about the identity cards news in Telegraph is yet again explaining what is wrong with Blunkett’s argument. Basically, each of the claims made by the Home Secretary in support of his pet scheme is wrong.
- First, Mr Blunkett says that there is strong public support for the idea. In fact, the Home Office’s recent consultation exercise focused on the concept of an entitlement card, a very different prospect. (Also, according to this Out-law article, the goverment has admited that the public opposes the ID card scheme.)
- The Home Secretary goes on to argue ID cards will help fight crime. This is one of those assertions that is forever being made, but hardly ever substantiated… The public mood is said to have changed since September 11, 2001, but no one has explained – or even seriously tried to explain – how ID cards would have thwarted those bombers, many of whom died in possession of forged papers.
- Nor, by the way, are ID cards a solution to illegal immigration. The root of the asylum problem is not that we cannot find clandestine entrants, but that we never enforce their deportation.
- More faulty still is Mr Blunkett’s central proposition, as set out in a letter to his Cabinet colleagues: “The argument that identity cards will inhibit our freedom is wrong. We are strengthened in our liberty if our identity is protected from theft; if we are able to access the services we are entitled to; and if our community is better protected from terrorists.” In an appendix to Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell describes how a concept can be traduced if the words used to express it lose their meaning. The example he gives, uncannily, is the word “free”. Now here is Mr Blunkett using “freedom” to mean more state control.
- Any doubts as to the wisdom of the scheme must surely be removed by the Home Secretary’s final argument in its favour: that we are “out of kilter with Europe”. Indeed we are, thank heaven. Policemen in Britain are seen as citizens in uniform, not agents of the government.
The most worrying is Blunkett’s spin on the concept of freedom. In his view we are strengthened in our liberty if our identity is protected from theft; if we are able to access the services we are entitled to; and if our community is better protected from terrorists. This is vaguely based on the distinction between negative and positive liberty, which are not merely two distinct kinds of liberty; they can be seen as rival, incompatible interpretations of a single political ideal.
Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this negative sense. Positive liberty is the possibility of acting – or the fact of acting – in such a way as to take control of one’s life and realize one’s fundamental purposes. While negative liberty is usually attributed to individual agents, positive liberty is sometimes attributed to collectivities, or to individuals considered primarily as members of given collectivities.
Blunkett and his New Labour chums are classic and rather unexceptional anti-liberals. I use the term liberal in its original meaning, based on negative definition of liberty and claiming that in order to protect individual liberty one should place strong limitations on the activities of the state. In Blunkett’s mind, the pursuit of liberty (whether of the individual or of the collectivity) requires state intervention, which, by definition, is not contradictory with limitations on personal freedom. As a result, the protests of civil liberties groups do not make sense to him.
The concept of freedom as being unprevented from doing whatever one might desire to do is alien to him. According to Isaiah Berlin the defender of positive freedom will take an additional step that consists in conceiving of the self as wider than the individual and as represented by an organic social whole – “a tribe, a race, a church, a state, the great society of the living and the dead and the yet unborn”. The true interests of the individual are to be identified with the interests of this whole, and individuals can and should be coerced into fulfilling these interests, for they would not resist coercion if they were as rational and wise as their coercers.
I will not grant Blunkett’s social and political philosophy such level of ‘sophistication’. I will say that his are the simple and toxic insticts of a collectivist and a statist and that those protesting policies based on them will have their words muffled by the Big Blunkett.
The Telegraph reports that a leaked memo revealed that David Blunkett is pushing the Cabinet to back national identity cards for everyone aged 16 and over. The Home Secretary insists in a memo to Cabinet colleagues that rather than limiting freedom, his plan for ID cards would reinforce people’s sense of liberty by making it easier for them to use services and protecting them from criminals and terrorists.
It is understood that he wants to introduce legislation in the autumn to allow cards to be brought in within the next few years. A full Cabinet discussion is expected within the next fortnight.
Privacy International, the civil rights watchdog, will mount a campaign against the plans this week. Simon Davies, its director, said:
This is without doubt the most threatening issue for civil rights and freedoms since the Second World War.
The visibility of accidents has gone up due to the mushrooming of TV news channels and that’s causing all the worry.
– M.Y. Siddiqui, India’s Railway Ministry spokesman when asked about mounting public anger over the safety record of India’s antiquated rail network, after accidents killed nearly 300 people in the last 12 months
Police yesterday released footage of the moment a 16-year-old girl was dragged into bushes as she walked home at 3am. A police officer driving home from work had spotted the girl walking on her own and had rung colleagues at the local police station, telling them to train the camera on her. Officers watching the CCTV footage saw the man carry her 20 yards into bushes.
An urgent message was sent over the police radio and several patrol cars raced to the scene. It is thought the man ran off when he either heard or saw the police cars in the distance. Det Con Mick Blunt, of Adwick CID, said last night:
The feeling among officers is that it could have been a lot worse. A man approached the girl from behind and had a brief conversation before picking her up and dragging her into adjacent bushes. The girl fought back, kicking and screaming, which resulted in her attacker releasing her.
This is good news – the girl was relatively unharmed, if traumatised, and it certainly appears that the CCTV camera was instrumental in saving her. Surveillance cameras are popular with the public precisely for this kind of assistance in crime prevention.
My opposition to surveillance is unabated though. It is based on two arguments. One is, installing a CCTV camera somewhere does not protect people in the area effectively. The effectiveness of such devices is determined by the way in which they are used. In this case, it was the police officer who spotted the girl and decided to instruct his colleagues to train the camera on her who made the difference.
We live in a country with three million surveillance cameras. Why does a case of a surveillance camera being partially instrumental in preventing and potentially solving a crime make it to the headline news? In order to justify the instrusion into its citizens’ privacy, the state has not made a case strong enough for surveillance effectivness. I do not see any corresponding decrease in crime. The only practical use of surveillance camera footage is forensic, after the event. The lenient criminal justice system in the UK is making even that use insignificant.
The main reason of opposing surveillance cameras rather than putting up with a minor ‘inconvenience’ of being monitored in public places (after all, an honest citizen has nothing to hide, does he?) goes to the very nature of the state. Under the guise of public security, governments happily assume the role of the Big Watcher and lay down an infrustructure that give them greater control over the lives of individual citizens. And as Brian pointed out in his post on road pricing and total surveillance, it is impossible to pry it out of the state’s cold intrusive fingers…
George W Bush has agreed to send up to 1,000 troops to Liberia. CNN reports that he took the decision after a meeting of his National Security Council. An announcement was expected, possibly today, that the US troops will head an international peacekeeping force.
Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, had urged the UN Security Council to dispatch a force “to prevent a major humanitarian tragedy” in an upsurge in fighting between factions engaged in a 14-year conflict that has killed a tenth of Liberia’s population.
Apart from embassy protection detachments, the marines will be the first American soldiers deployed in Africa since the withdrawal from Somalia nearly a decade ago. Britain, France and some African countries had called on America to lead it because of its historical links with Liberia, founded in 1822 as a settlement for freed American slaves.
Comments by White House press secretary Ari Fleischer that Bush was considering sending troops provoked a nearly instantaneous reaction in Monrovia, where thousands of people gathered outside the U.S. Embassy to cheer a possible American presence. One man said:
We feel America can bring peace because they are the original founders of this nation, and secondly, they are the superpower of the world.
Strange, Liberians do not seem to have a problem with that…
The European Union’s 15 member nations have introduced a value-added tax on digital sales to residents by non-European companies. By 3rd July, non-EU companies have to register with European tax authorities to levy, collect and remit the VAT on sales of various digital goods and services. A directive issued by the EU in May 2002, mandates companies that do not have a physical presence in an EU member nation to assess the tax at the rates charged by the countries where individual customers are located.
Computerworld reports that this imposition has forced many U.S. businesses to undertake months of legal and technical preparations. The VAT in the EU countries ranges from 15% in Luxembourg to 25% in Denmark and Sweden and as a result, some U.S. companies have had to choose between two costly alternatives: updating their e-commerce systems to track sales and initiate VAT payments at the various rates, or setting up new operations in one of the member countries so they can apply its tax rate to all digital sales throughout the EU.
Scott Pendergrast of Fictionwise, an e-books seller, said it would not have been economically feasible to invest in a European operation. Instead, he is preparing to collect the tax in different countries, although reluctantly.
I think paying it is ridiculous, and it’s unfair for a foreign government to make me a tax collector. I have enough trouble keeping track of the the U.S. tax code.
Others are questioning the ability of the EU to enforce the tax on the grounds that European courts would not have jurisdiction over them. Jon Abolins of Taxware, an e-commerce software developer, has been advising companies not to do so, because there is speculation that EU countries might not fight to protect the intellectual property rights of sellers that fail to collect the VAT.
There is so much wrong with this picture one does not know where to begin. First, of all, taxing on-line transactions is not specific to the EU, merely another thieving hand of the state. Secondly, the EU approved the VAT plan after content providers based in Europe complained that they were at a competitive disadvantage because they already have to collect the tax. A classic interference of the political into the economical, so beloved of the EU commissioners. Thirdly, in a typical EU fashion the law is ambiguous as to how companies are to determine the location of the buyer and near unenforceable by the vendors. They will spend hundreds of thousands hard earned profits on installing systems designed to assess and collect the VAT and on third-party vendors tracing the IP addresses of their customers.
And, if the EU governments feel they are not getting enough, they can send the tax authorities after the companies for not collecting the taxes for them. Welcome to the EU, the land where business is just another branch of the state.
American spy satellites have found what looks like an advanced nuclear testing range in North Korea, the Telegraph reports.
American intelligence officials now believe that North Korea is developing the technology to make nuclear warheads small enough to fit atop the country’s growing arsenal of missiles, potentially putting Tokyo and American troops based in Japan at risk, according to officials who have received the intelligence reports.
An intelligence assessment, which has been shared with Japan, South Korea and other East Asian nations, identifies a previously unknown range of the type needed to produce a nuclear missile warhead according to the New York Times. The new testing capability does not mean North Korea can actually build a small weapon, but it suggests that the North Koreans are moving to combine their two most advanced weapons projects: nuclear technology and missile technology.
As Telegraph points out such uncertainty leads to a further cause for alarm: the outside world’s reliance on remote sensors and satellite images to track what is going on inside the paranoid totalitarian state.
North Korea, unlike Iraq, has made no secret of its plan to develop nuclear weapons. Now, administration officials say they fear that the North is on the verge of producing five or six new weapons, some of which might be miniaturized.
“This would give them the range they never had before, and the chance to spread their threat far beyond South Korea,” said a senior Asian official, noting that about 60,000 American troops are based in Japan.
Without question, though, North Korea’s abilities greatly outstrip anything Iraq had in the last decade, and the North’s program is probably several years ahead of Iran’s.
The Telegraph reports:
A woman who was strip-searched when she went to visit her son in jail asked five law lords yesterday to create a new law of personal privacy. Lawyers for Mary Wainwright, 49, from Leeds, hope the House of Lords will overturn decisions by lower courts that there is no right to privacy in English common law.
Mrs Wainwright visited her elder son Patrick at Armley Prison, Leeds, in January 1997. She was accompanied by her younger son, Alan, who suffers from cerebral palsy with a degree of mental impairment. Before the visit could go ahead, Mrs Wainwright and Alan were strip-searched for concealed drugs. The searches were more intrusive than was permitted by prison guidelines.
A judge in Leeds decided that their privacy had been infringed but this ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal in December 2001. Three judges, headed by the Lord Chief Justice, held that there was no right to personal privacy in English law.
Exactly a year ago, Melanie Phillips has written an excellent article ID cards are not the British way. Alas, her arguments are as necessary and relevant as they were then.
She addresses every point in the debate, from the increased need for security, terrorism, mass immigration, problems with ‘compulsory’ entitlement cards, personal information on ‘smart card’, causes of rising crime etc.
The most central argument, though, is difference between the British concept of liberty and the European one:
Britain is not the same as Europe. We have a very different approach to liberty. Here, everything is permitted unless it is forbidden. People can go about their business without being expected to give an account of themselves.
By contrast, in Europe freedom is something that has to be codified and granted from above. So Europeans have always been used to producing ‘papers’ to prove themselves, a practice that we have always found unacceptable.
And her last paragraph certainly belongs here, on White Rose:
Now, thrashing around in panic to show that it is getting on top of our social problems, it is not coming up with policies that actually work but is proposing instead to nail down still further the coffin of British liberty.
It has been known for some time that Britain plays a significant role as a support base for al-Qa’eda. So much so that even the government conceded the fact. Details about the activities of British-based Muslim fanatics were given during a series of appeals by suspected foreign terrorists against their detention without trial.
The Special Immigration Appeals Commission, sitting in London, heard how a dozen terrorist attacks and planned attacks around the world could be traced in part to Britain. At the centre of the network was a number of radical clerics, including Abu Hamza, the hook-handed north London imam who faces the loss of his British citizenship.
Today, a report published by Charity Commission, a statutory organisation that regulates charities in the UK, has concluded that Abu Hamza, drove away moderate Muslims from the mosque in Finsbury Park, took over and used it as a base to spread extremist views and shelter his supporters.
The Telegraph reported last week that although now removed from his post at Finsbury Park mosque, Hamza has not been detained and continues to address his followers outside the building every Friday. An attempt to strip him of his British citizenship has been stalled because Hamza has lodged an appeal that will not be heard for several months. The US authorities are delaying their extradition request until they are satisfied they have built a strong enough case to succeed in the British courts.
Why does it take so long to remove such obvious threat to the British society? Abu Hamza is a self-professed enemy of the West, with links to Taliban and Al Qa’eda. The only thing the British authorities managed so far, is to get him banned from the mosque and strip him of his many welfare benefits. I feel so much safer now!
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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